William Shakespeare, The Poems and Glossary (Oxford ed.) [1916]

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William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare), ed. with a glossary by W.J. Craig M.A. (London: Oxford University Press, 1916).
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About this Title:

This section contains Shakespeare’s major poems such as Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, A Lover’s Complaint, The Passionate Pilgrim, and the Phoenix and the Turtle, as well as the Sonnets.

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The text is in the public domain.

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This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.

POEMS

VENUS AND ADONIS

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.

Right Honourable,

I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden: only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty,

William Shakespeare.

Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face

Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,

Rose-cheek’d Adonis hied him to the chase;

Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;

Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,Craig1916: 5

And like a bold-fac’d suitor ’gins to woo him.

‘Thrice fairer than myself,’ thus she began,

‘The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,Craig1916: 8

Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,

More white and red than doves or roses are;

Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,

Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.Craig1916: 12

‘Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,

And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;

If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed

A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:Craig1916: 16

Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses;

And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses:

‘And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety,

But rather famish them amid their plenty,Craig1916: 20

Making them red and pale with fresh variety;

Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:

A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,

Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.’Craig1916: 24

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,

The precedent of pith and livelihood,

And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,

Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good:Craig1916: 28

Being so enrag’d, desire doth lend her force

Courageously to pluck him from his horse.

Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein,

Under her other was the tender boy,Craig1916: 32

Who blush’d and pouted in a dull disdain,

With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;

She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,

He red for shame, but frosty in desire.Craig1916: 36

The studded bridle on a ragged bough

Nimbly she fastens;—O! how quick is love:—

The steed is stalled up, and even now

To tie the rider she begins to prove:Craig1916: 40

Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust,

And govern’d him in strength, though not in lust.

So soon was she along, as he was down,

Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:Craig1916: 44

Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,

And ’gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips;

And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,

‘If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.’

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He burns with bashful shame; she with her tears

Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;

Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs

To fan and blow them dry again she seeks:Craig1916: 52

He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;

What follows more she murders with a kiss.

Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,

Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,

Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,Craig1916: 57

Till either gorge be stuff’d or prey be gone;

Even so she kiss’d his brow, his cheek, his chin,

And where she ends she doth anew begin.Craig1916: 60

Forc’d to content, but never to obey,

Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face;

She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,

And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace;Craig1916: 64

Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers,

So they were dew’d with such distilling showers.

Look! how a bird lies tangled in a net,

So fasten’d in her arms Adonis lies;Craig1916: 68

Pure shame and aw’d resistance made him fret,

Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:

Rain added to a river that is rank

Perforce will force it overflow the bank.Craig1916: 72

Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,

For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale;

Still is he sullen, still he lowers and frets,

’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale;Craig1916: 76

Being red, she loves him best; and being white,

Her best is better’d with a more delight.

Look how he can, she cannot choose but love;

And by her fair immortal hand she swears,Craig1916: 80

From his soft bosom never to remove,

Till he take truce with her contending tears,

Which long have rain’d, making her cheeks all wet;

And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt,Craig1916: 84

Upon this promise did he raise his chin

Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,

Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in;

So offers he to give what she did crave;Craig1916: 88

But when her lips were ready for his pay,

He winks, and turns his lips another way.

Never did passenger in summer’s heat

More thirst for drink than she for this good turn.Craig1916: 92

Her help she sees, but help she cannot get;

She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn:

‘O! pity,’ ’gan she cry, ‘flint-hearted boy:

’Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?Craig1916: 96

‘I have been woo’d, as I entreat thee now,

Even by the stern and direful god of war,

Whose sinewy neck in battle ne’er did bow,

Who conquers where he comes in every jar;Craig1916: 100

Yet hath he been my captive and my slave,

And begg’d for that which thou unask’d shalt have.

‘Over my altars hath he hung his lance,

His batter’d shield, his uncontrolled crest,Craig1916: 104

And for my sake hath learn’d to sport and dance,

To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest;

Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red,

Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.

‘Thus he that overrul’d I oversway’d,Craig1916: 109

Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain:

Strong-temper’d steel his stronger strength obey’d,

Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.Craig1916: 112

O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,

For mastering her that foil’d the god of fight.

‘Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,—

Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red,—

The kiss shall be thine own as weil as mine:Craig1916: 117

What seest thou in the ground? hold up thy head:

Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;

Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?Craig1916: 120

‘Art thou asham’d to kiss? then wink again,

And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;

Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;

Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:Craig1916: 124

These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean

Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.

‘The tender spring upon thy tempting lip

Shows thee unripe, yet mayst thou well be tasted.Craig1916: 128

Make use of time, let not advantage slip;

Beauty within itself should not be wasted:

Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their primeCraig1916: 131

Rot and consume themselves in little time.

‘Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or wrinkled-old,

Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,

O’erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,

Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,

Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;Craig1916: 137

But having no defects, why dost abhor me?

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‘Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow;

Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning;Craig1916: 140

My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow;

My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning;

My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,

Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.

‘Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,Craig1916: 145

Or like a fairy trip upon the green,

Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell’d hair,

Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen:

Love is a spirit all compact of fire,Craig1916: 149

Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.

‘Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie;

These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;Craig1916: 152

Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,

From morn till night, even where I list to sport me:

Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be

That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?

‘Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?

Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?

Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,

Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.Craig1916: 160

Narcissus so himself himself forsook,

And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.

‘Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,

Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,Craig1916: 164

Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear;

Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse:

Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;

Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.Craig1916: 168

‘Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed,

Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?

By law of nature thou art bound to breed,

That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;

And so in spite of death thou dost survive,Craig1916: 173

In that thy likeness still is left alive.’

By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,

For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,Craig1916: 176

And Titan, tired in the mid-day heat,

With burning eye did hotly overlook them;

Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,

So he were like him and by Venus’ side.Craig1916: 180

And now Adonis with a lazy spright,

And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,

His louring brows o’er whelming his fair sight,

Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,Craig1916: 184

Souring his cheeks, cries, ‘Fie! no more of love:

The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.’

‘Ay me,’ quoth Venus, ‘young, and so unkind?

What bare excuses mak’st thou to be gone;Craig1916: 188

I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind

Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:

I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;

If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears.Craig1916: 192

‘The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,

And lo! I lie between that sun and thee:

The heat I have from thence doth little harm,

Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;

And were I not immortal, life were doneCraig1916: 197

Between this heavenly and earthly sun.

‘Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?

Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth.Craig1916: 200

Art thou a woman’s son, and canst not feel

What ’tis to love? how want of love tormenteth?

O! had thy mother borne so hard a mind,

She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.Craig1916: 204

‘What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?

Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?

What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?

Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:Craig1916: 208

Give me one kiss, I’ll give it thee again,

And one for interest, if thou wilt have twain.

‘Fie! lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,

Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,Craig1916: 212

Statue contenting but the eye alone,

Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:

Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion,

For men will kiss even by their own direction.’

This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,Craig1916: 217

And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;

Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;

Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause:

And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,Craig1916: 221

And now her sobs do her intendments break.

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Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand;

Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;Craig1916: 224

Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:

She would, he will not in her arms be bound;

And when from thence he struggles to be gone,

She locks her lily fingers one in one.Craig1916: 228

‘Fondling,’ she saith, ‘since I have hemm’d thee here

Within the circuit of this ivory pale,

I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;

Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:

Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,Craig1916: 233

Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

‘Within this limit is relief enough,

Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,

Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,Craig1916: 237

To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:

Then be my deer, since I am such a park;

No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.’Craig1916: 240

At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,

That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple:

Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,

He might be buried in a tomb so simple;Craig1916: 244

Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,

Why, there Love liv’d and there he could not die.

These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,

Open’d their mouths to swallow Venus’ liking.

Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?

Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?Craig1916: 250

Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,

To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!

Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say?

Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;Craig1916: 254

The time is spent, her object will away,

And from her twining arms doth urge releasing:

‘Pity,’ she cries; ‘some favour, some remorse!’Craig1916: 257

Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.

But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,

A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,Craig1916: 260

Adonis’ trampling courser doth espy,

And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:

The strong-neck’d steed, being tied unto a tree,

Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,Craig1916: 265

And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;

The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,

Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder;Craig1916: 268

The iron bit he crushes ’tween his teeth,

Controlling what he was controlled with.

His ears up-prick’d; his braided hanging maneCraig1916: 271

Upon his compass’d crest now stand on end;

His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,

As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:

His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,

Shows his hot courage and his high desire.

Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,Craig1916: 277

With gentle majesty and modest pride;

Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,

As who should say, ‘Lo! thus my strength is tried;Craig1916: 280

And this I do to captivate the eye

Of the fair breeder that is standing by.’

What recketh he his rider’s angry stir,

His flattering ‘Holla,’ or his ‘Stand, I say?’Craig1916: 284

What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?

For rich caparisons or trapping gay?

He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,

Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.

Look, when a painter would surpass the life,

In limning out a well-proportion’d steed,

His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,

As if the dead the living should exceed;Craig1916: 292

So did this horse excel a common one,

In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.

Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,

Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,Craig1916: 296

High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,

Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:

Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,

Save a proud rider on so proud a back.Craig1916: 300

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;

Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;

To bid the wind a base he now prepares,

And whe’r he run or fly they know not whether;

For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,Craig1916: 305

Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather’d wings.

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He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;

She answers him as if she knew his mind;Craig1916: 308

Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,

She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,

Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,

Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

Then, like a melancholy malcontent,Craig1916: 313

He vails his tail that, like a falling plume

Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:

He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.

His love, perceiving how he is enrag’d,Craig1916: 317

Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag’d.

His testy master goeth about to take him;

When lo! the unback’d breeder, full of fear,Craig1916: 320

Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,

With her the horse, and left Adonis there.

As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,

Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.Craig1916: 324

All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,

Banning his boisterous and unruly beast:

And now the happy season once more fits,

That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest;

For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong

When it is barr’d the aidance of the tongue.

An oven that is stopp’d, or river stay’d,

Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:

So of concealed sorrow may be said;Craig1916: 333

Free vent of words love’s fire doth assuage;

But when the heart’s attorney once is mute,

The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.Craig1916: 336

He sees her coming, and begins to glow,—

Even as a dying coal revives with wind,—

And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;

Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,

Taking no notice that she is so nigh,Craig1916: 341

For all askance he holds her in his eye.

O! what a sight it was, wistly to view

How she came stealing to the wayward boy;

To note the fighting conflict of her hue,Craig1916: 345

How white and red each other did destroy:

But now her cheek was pale, and by and by

It flash’d forth fire, as lightning from the sky.

Now was she just before him as he sat,Craig1916: 349

And like a lowly lover down she kneels;

With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,

Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:Craig1916: 352

His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand’s print,

As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.

O! what a war of looks was then between them;

Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing;Craig1916: 356

His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them;

Her eyes woo’d still, his eyes disdain’d the wooing:

And all this dumb play had his acts made plain

With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.Craig1916: 360

Full gently now she takes him by the hand,

A lily prison’d in a gaol of snow,

Or ivory in an alabaster band;

So white a friend engirts so white a foe:Craig1916: 364

This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,

Show’d like two silver doves that sit a-billing.

Once more the engine of her thoughts began:

‘O fairest mover on this mortal round,Craig1916: 368

Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,

My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;

For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,

Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure thee.’Craig1916: 372

‘Give me my hand,’ saith he, ‘why dost thou feel it?’

‘Give me my heart,’ saith she, ‘and thou shalt have it;

O! give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,

And being steel’d, soft sighs can never grave it:

Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard,

Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.’

‘For shame,’ he cries, ‘let go, and let me go;

My day’s delight is past, my horse is gone,Craig1916: 380

And ’tis your fault I am bereft him so:

I pray you hence, and leave me here alone:

For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,

Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.’Craig1916: 384

Thus she replies: ‘Thy palfrey, as he should,

Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:

Affection is a coal that must be cool’d;

Else, suffer’d, it will set the heart on fire:Craig1916: 388

The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;

Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.

‘How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree,

Servilely master’d with a leathern rein!Craig1916: 392

But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee,

He held such petty bondage in disdain;

Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,

Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.Craig1916: 396

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‘Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,Craig1916: 397

Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,

But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,

His other agents aim at like delight?Craig1916: 400

Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold

To touch the fire, the weather being cold?

‘Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;

And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,Craig1916: 404

To take advantage on presented joy;

Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.

O learn to love; the lesson is but plain,

And once made perfect, never lost again.’Craig1916: 408

‘I know not love,’ quoth he, ‘nor will not know it,

Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;

’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;

My love to love is love but to disgrace it;Craig1916: 412

For I have heard it is a life in death,

That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.

‘Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d?

Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?

If springing things be any jot diminish’d,Craig1916: 417

They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth:

The colt that’s back’d and burden’d being young

Loseth his pride and never waxeth strong.Craig1916: 420

‘You hurt my hand with wringing; let us part,

And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:

Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;

To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate:Craig1916: 424

Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;

For where a heart is hard, they make no battery.’

‘What! canst thou talk?’ quoth she, ‘hast thou a tongue?

O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;

Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;Craig1916: 429

I had my load before, now press’d with hearing:

Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,

Ear’s deep-sweet music, and heart’s deep-sore wounding.Craig1916: 432

‘Had I no eyes, but ears, my ears would love

That inward beauty and invisible;

Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move

Each part in me that were but sensible:Craig1916: 436

Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,

Yet should I be in love by touching thee.

‘Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,

And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,

And nothing but the very smell were left me,

Yet would my love to thee be still as much;

For from the still’tory of thy face excelling

Comes breath perfum’d that breedeth love by smelling.Craig1916: 444

‘But O! what banquet wert thou to the taste,

Being nurse and feeder of the other four;

Would they not wish the feast might ever last,

And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,Craig1916: 448

Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,

Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?’

Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d,

Which to his speech did honey passage yield;

Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’dCraig1916: 453

Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,

Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,

Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

This ill presage advisedly she marketh:Craig1916: 457

Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,

Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,

Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,Craig1916: 460

Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,

His meaning struck her ere his words begun.

And at his look she flatly falleth down,

For looks kill love and love by looks reviveth;

A smile recures the wounding of a frown;Craig1916: 465

But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth!

The silly boy, believing she is dead,

Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;Craig1916: 468

And all-amaz’d brake off his late intent,

For sharply he did think to reprehend her,

Which cunning love did wittily prevent:

Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!Craig1916: 472

For on the grass she lies as she were slain,

Till his breath breatheth life in her again.

He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,

He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,Craig1916: 476

He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks

To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d:

He kisses her; and she, by her good will,

Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.Craig1916: 480

The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day:

Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,

Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array

He cheers the morn and all the world relieveth:Craig1916: 484

And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,

So is her face illumin’d with her eye;

Edition: current; Page: [1250]

Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix’d,

As if from thence they borrow’d all their shine.

Were never four such lamps together mix’d,Craig1916: 489

Had not his clouded with his brows’ repine;

But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light,

Shone like the moon in water seen by night.

‘O! where am I?’ quoth she, in earth or heaven,Craig1916: 493

Or in the ocean drench’d, or in the fire?

What hour is this? or morn or weary even?

Do I delight to die, or life desire?Craig1916: 496

But now I liv’d, and life was death’s annoy;

But now I died, and death was lively joy.

‘O! thou didst kill me; kill me once again:

Thy eyes’ shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,Craig1916: 500

Hath taught them scornful tricks and such disdain

That they have murder’d this poor heart of mine;

And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,

But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.Craig1916: 504

‘Long may they kiss each other for this cure!

O! never let their crimson liveries wear;

And as they last, their verdure still endure,

To drive infection from the dangerous year:Craig1916: 508

That the star-gazers, having writ on death,

May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath.

‘Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,

What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?

To sell myself I can be well contented,Craig1916: 513

So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing;

Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips

Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips.Craig1916: 516

‘A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;

And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.

What is ten hundred touches unto thee?

Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?Craig1916: 520

Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,

Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?’

‘Fair queen,’ quoth he, ‘if any love you owe me,

Measure my strangeness with my unripe years:Craig1916: 524

Before I know myself, seek not to know me;

No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:

The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast.

Or being early pluck’d is sour to taste.Craig1916: 528

‘Look! the world’s comforter, with weary gait,

His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;

The owl, night’s herald, shrieks, ’tis very late;

The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,

And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s lightCraig1916: 533

Do summon us to part and bid good night.

‘Now let me say good night, and so say you;

If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.’Craig1916: 536

‘Good night,’ quoth she; and ere he says adieu,

The honey fee of parting tender’d is:

Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;

Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.

Till, breathless, he disjoin’d, and backward drew

The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,

Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,

Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth:

He with her plenty press’d, she faint with dearth,Craig1916: 545

Their lips together glu’d, fall to the earth.

Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,

And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;Craig1916: 548

Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,

Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;

Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,

That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry.

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,Craig1916: 553

With blindfold fury she begins to forage;

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,

And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,Craig1916: 557

Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,

Like a wild bird being tam’d with too much handling,Craig1916: 560

Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tir’d with chasing,

Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling,

He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,

While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.

What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,Craig1916: 565

And yields at last to every light impression?

Things out of hope are compass’d oft with venturing,

Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:Craig1916: 568

Affection faints not like a pale-fac’d coward,

But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

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When he did frown, O! had she then gave over,Craig1916: 571

Such nectar from his lips she had not suck’d.

Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;

What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d:

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,

Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last.Craig1916: 576

For pity now she can no more detain him;

The poor fool prays her that he may depart:

She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him,Craig1916: 579

Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,

The which, by Cupid’s bow she doth protest,

He carries thence incaged in his breast.

‘Sweet boy,’ she says, ‘this night I’ll waste in sorrow,

For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.Craig1916: 584

Tell me, Love’s master, shall we meet to-morrow?

Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?’

He tells her, no; to-morrow he intends

To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.

‘The boar!’ quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,

Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,

Usurps her cheeks, she trembles at his tale,Craig1916: 591

And on his neck her yoking arms she throws:

She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,

He on her belly falls, she on her back.

Now is she in the very lists of love,

Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:

All is imaginary she doth prove,Craig1916: 597

He will not manage her, although he mount her;

That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,

To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.Craig1916: 600

Even as poor birds, deceiv’d with painted grapes,

Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw,

Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,

As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.

The warm effects which she in him finds missing,Craig1916: 605

She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.

But all in vain; good queen, it will not be:

She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d;Craig1916: 608

Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee;

She’s Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.

‘Fie, fie!’ he says, ‘you crush me; let me go;

You have no reason to withhold me so.’Craig1916: 612

‘Thou hadst been gone,’ quoth she, ‘sweet boy, ere this,

But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.

O! be advis’d; thou know’st not what it is

With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,

Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still,Craig1916: 617

Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

‘On his bow-back he hath a battle set

Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;Craig1916: 620

His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;

His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes;

Being mov’d, he strikes whate’er is in his way,

And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.Craig1916: 624

‘His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm’d,

Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter;

His short thick neck cannot be easily harm’d;

Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:Craig1916: 628

The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,

As fearful of him part, through whom he rushes.

‘Alas! he nought esteems that face of thine,

To which Love’s eyes pay tributary gazes;Craig1916: 632

Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,

Whose full perfection all the world amazes;

But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!

Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.Craig1916: 636

‘O! let him keep his loathsome cabin still;

Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:

Come not within his danger by thy will;

They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.Craig1916: 640

When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,

I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

‘Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white?Craig1916: 643

Saw’st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?

Grew I not faint? And fell I not downright?

Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,

My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,

But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.Craig1916: 648

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‘For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy

Doth call himself Affection’s sentinel;

Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,

And in a peaceful hour doth cry “Kill kill!”Craig1916: 652

Distempering gentle Love in his desire,

As air and water do abate the fire.

‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,

This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring,

This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,Craig1916: 657

That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,

Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear

That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:

‘And more than so, presenteth to mine eyeCraig1916: 661

The picture of an angry-chafing boar,

Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie

An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore;Craig1916: 664

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed

Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

‘What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,

That tremble at the imagination?Craig1916: 668

The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,

And fear doth teach it divination:

I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,Craig1916: 671

If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me;

Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,

Or at the fox which lives by subtilty,

Or at the roe which no encounter dare:Craig1916: 676

Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,

And on thy well-breath’d horse keep with thy hounds.

‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,

Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles

How he outruns the winds, and with what careCraig1916: 681

He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:

The many musits through the which he goes

Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.Craig1916: 684

‘Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,

To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,

And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,

To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,Craig1916: 688

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;

Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

‘For there his smell with others being mingled,

The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,Craig1916: 692

Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled

With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;

Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,

As if another chase were in the skies.Craig1916: 696

‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,

Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,

To hearken if his foes pursue him still:

Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;Craig1916: 700

And now his grief may be compared well

To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

‘Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch

Turn, and return, indenting with the way;Craig1916: 704

Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,

Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:

For misery is trodden on by many,

And being low never reliev’d by any.Craig1916: 708

‘Lie quietly, and hear a little more;

Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:

To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,

Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,Craig1916: 712

Applying this to that, and so to so;

For love can comment upon every woe.

‘Where did I leave?’ ‘No matter where,’ quoth he;

‘Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:Craig1916: 716

The night is spent,’ ‘Why, what of that?’ quoth she.

‘I am,’ quoth he, ‘expected of my friends;

And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.’

‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.’

‘But if thou fall, O! then imagine this,Craig1916: 721

The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,

And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.

Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lipsCraig1916: 724

Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,

Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.

‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:

Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,Craig1916: 728

Till forging Nature be condemn’d of treason,

For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine;

Wherein she fram’d thee in high heaven’s despite,Craig1916: 731

To shame the sun by day and her by night.

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‘And therefore hath she brib’d the Destinies,

To cross the curious workmanship of nature,

To mingle beauty with infirmities,

And pure perfection with impure defeature;Craig1916: 736

Making it subject to the tyranny

Of mad mischances and much misery;

‘As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,

Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,Craig1916: 740

The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint

Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;

Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn’d despair,

Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair.

‘And not the least of all these maladiesCraig1916: 745

But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under:

Both favour, savour, hue, and qualities,

Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,

Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done,Craig1916: 749

As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun.

‘Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,

Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,Craig1916: 752

That on the earth would breed a scarcity

And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,

Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night

Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.

‘What is thy body but a swallowing grave,Craig1916: 757

Seeming to bury that posterity

Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,

If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?Craig1916: 760

If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,

Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

‘So in thyself thyself art made away;

A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,

Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,Craig1916: 765

Or butcher-sire that reaves his son of life.

Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,

But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.’

‘Nay then,’ quoth Adon, ‘you will fall againCraig1916: 769

Into your idle over-handled theme;

The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain,

And all in vain you strive against the stream;

For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse,Craig1916: 773

Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

‘If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,

And every tongue more moving than your own,Craig1916: 776

Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs,

Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;

For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,

And will not let a false sound enter there;Craig1916: 780

‘Lest the deceiving harmony should run

Into the quiet closure of my breast;

And then my little heart were quite undone,

In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest.Craig1916: 784

No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,

But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

‘What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove?

The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;

I hate not love, but your device in love,Craig1916: 789

That lends embracements unto every stranger.

You do it for increase: O strange excuse!

When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse.Craig1916: 792

‘Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled,

Since sweating Lust on earth usurp’d his name;

Under whose simple semblance he hath fed

Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;Craig1916: 796

Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,

As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

‘Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,

But Lust’s effect is tempest after sun;Craig1916: 800

Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,

Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done.

Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;

Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.Craig1916: 804

‘More I could tell, but more I dare not say;

The text is old, the orator too green.

Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;

My face is full of shame, my heart of teen:Craig1916: 808

Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended,

Do burn themselves for having so offended.’

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace

Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,Craig1916: 812

And homeward through the dark laund runs apace;

Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress’d.

Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky,

So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye;Craig1916: 816

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Which after him she darts, as one on shore

Gazing upon a late-embarked friend,

Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,

Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:

So did the merciless and pitchy nightCraig1916: 821

Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

Whereat amaz’d, as one that unaware

Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood,Craig1916: 824

Or ’stonish’d as night-wanderers often are,

Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;

Even so confounded in the dark she lay,

Having lost the fair discovery of her way.Craig1916: 828

And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,

That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,

Make verbal repetition of her moans;

Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:Craig1916: 832

‘Ay me!’ she cries, and twenty times, ‘Woe, woe!’

And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

She marking them, begins a wailing note,

And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;Craig1916: 836

How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;

How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:

Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,

And still the choir of echoes answer so.Craig1916: 840

Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,

For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short:

If pleas’d themselves, others, they think, delight

In such like circumstance, with such like sport:Craig1916: 844

Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,

End without audience, and are never done.

For who hath she to spend the night withal,

But idle sounds resembling parasites;Craig1916: 848

Like shrill-tongu’d tapsters answering every call,

Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?

She says, ‘’Tis so:’ they answer all, ‘’Tis so;’

And would say after her, if she said ‘No.’Craig1916: 852

Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,

And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast

The sun ariseth in his majesty;Craig1916: 856

Who doth the world so gloriously behold,

That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish’d gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:

‘O thou clear god, and patron of all light,Craig1916: 860

From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow

The beauteous influence that makes him bright,

There lives a son that suck’d an earthly mother,

May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.’Craig1916: 864

This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,

Musing the morning is so much o’erworn,

And yet she hears no tidings of her love;

She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn:

Anon she hears them chant it lustily,Craig1916: 869

And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.

And as she runs, the bushes in the way

Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,

Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:

She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,

Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,

Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.

By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;Craig1916: 877

Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder

Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way,

The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;Craig1916: 880

Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds

Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.

For now she knows it is no gentle chase,

But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,

Because the cry remaineth in one place,Craig1916: 885

Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:

Finding their enemy to be so curst,

They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first.Craig1916: 888

This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,

Through which it enters to surprise her heart;

Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,

With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;Craig1916: 892

Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,

They basely fly and dare not stay the field.

Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,

Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay’d,Craig1916: 896

She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy,

And childish error, that they are afraid;

Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:

And with that word she spied the hunted boar,Craig1916: 900

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Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,

Like milk and blood being mingled both together,

A second fear through all her sinews spread,

Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:Craig1916: 904

This way she runs, and now she will no further,

But back retires to rate the boar for murther.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,

She treads the path that she untreads again;

Her more than haste is mated with delays,Craig1916: 909

Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,

Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,

In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.Craig1916: 912

Here kennel’d in a brake she finds a hound,

And asks the weary caitiff for his master,

And there another licking of his wound,

’Gainst venom’d sores the only sovereign plaster,Craig1916: 916

And here she meets another sadly scowling,

To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceas’d his ill-resounding noise,

Another flap-mouth’d mourner, black and grim,Craig1916: 920

Against the welkin volleys out his voice;

Another and another answer him,

Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,

Shaking their scratch’d ears, bleeding as they go.Craig1916: 924

Look, how the world’s poor people are amaz’d

At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,

Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz’d,

Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;Craig1916: 928

So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,

And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.

‘Hard-favour’d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,

Hateful divorce of love,’—thus chides she Death,—Craig1916: 932

‘Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm, what dost thou mean

To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,

Who when he liv’d, his breath and beauty set

Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?Craig1916: 936

‘If he be dead, O no! it cannot be,

Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;

O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see,

But hatefully at random dost thou hit.Craig1916: 940

Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart

Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant’s heart.

‘Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,

And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power.Craig1916: 944

The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;

They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower.

Love’s golden arrow at him should have fied,

And not Death’s ebon dart, to strike him dead.Craig1916: 948

‘Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping?

What may a heavy groan advantage thee?

Why hast thou cast into eternal sleepingCraig1916: 951

Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?

Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,

Since her best work is ruin’d with thy rigour.’

Here overcome, as one full of despair,Craig1916: 955

She vail’d her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp’d

The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair

In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp’d;

But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,

And with his strong course opens them again.

O! how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;Craig1916: 961

Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;

Both crystals, where they view’d each other’s sorrow,

Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;

But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,

Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable passions throng her constant woe,

As striving who should best become her grief;

All entertain’d, each passion labours so,Craig1916: 969

That every present sorrow seemeth chief,

But none is best; then join they all together,

Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.

By this, far off she hears some huntsman holla;

A nurse’s song ne’er pleas’d her babe so well:

The dire imagination she did follow

This sound of hope doth labour to expel;Craig1916: 976

For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,

And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,

Being prison’d in her eye, like pearls in glass;

Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,Craig1916: 981

Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass,

To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,

Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d.Craig1916: 984

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O hard-believing love! how strange it seems

Not to believe, and yet too credulous;

Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;

Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:Craig1916: 988

The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,

In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,

Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;Craig1916: 992

It was not she that call’d him all to naught,

Now she adds honours to his hateful name;

She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,

Imperious supreme of all mortal things.Craig1916: 996

‘No, no,’ quoth she, ‘sweet Death, I did but jest;

Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear

Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,

Which knows no pity, but is still severe;Craig1916: 1000

Then, gentle shadow,—truth I must confess,—

I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease.

‘’Tis not my fault: the boar provok’d my tongue;

Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander;Craig1916: 1004

’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;

I did but act, he’s author of my slander:

Grief hath two tongues: and never woman yet,

Could rule them both without ten women’s wit.’Craig1916: 1008

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,

Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;

And that his beauty may the better thrive,

With Death she humbly doth insinuate;Craig1916: 1012

Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories

His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.

‘O Jove!’ quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I,

To be of such a weak and silly mindCraig1916: 1016

To wail his death who lives and must not die

Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;

For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,

And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.

‘Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fearCraig1916: 1021

As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves;

Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,

Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.’

Even at this word she hears a merry horn,

Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.

As falcon to the lure, away she flies;

The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;

And in her haste unfortunately spiesCraig1916: 1029

The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight;

Which seen, her eyes, as murder’d with the view,

Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew:Craig1916: 1032

Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,

Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,

And there, all smother’d up, in shade doth sit,

Long after fearing to creep forth again;Craig1916: 1036

So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled

Into the deep dark cabins of her head:

Where they resign their office and their light

To the disposing of her troubled brain;Craig1916: 1040

Who bids them still consort with ugly night,

And never wound the heart with looks again;

Who, like a king perplexed in his throne,

By their suggestion gives a deadly groan,

Whereat each tributary subject quakes;Craig1916: 1045

As when the wind, imprison’d in the ground,

Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes,

Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound.

This mutiny each part doth so surpriseCraig1916: 1049

That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes;

And, being open’d, threw unwilling light

Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’dCraig1916: 1052

In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white

With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench’d:

No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,

But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed.Craig1916: 1056

This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,

Over one shoulder doth she hang her head,

Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;

She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:Craig1916: 1060

Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow,

Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.

Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,

That her right dazzling makes the wound seem three;Craig1916: 1064

And then she reprehends her mangling eye,

That makes more gashes where no breach should be:

His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled;

For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.Craig1916: 1068

Edition: current; Page: [1257]

‘My tongue cannot express my grief for one,

And yet,’ quoth she, ‘behold two Adons dead!

My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,

Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead:

Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire!Craig1916: 1073

So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

‘Alas! poor world, what treasure hast thou lost?

What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing?Craig1916: 1076

Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast

Of things long since, or anything ensuing?

The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim;

But true-sweet beauty liv’d and died with him.

‘Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!

Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:

Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;

The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:Craig1916: 1084

But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air

Lurk’d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair:

‘And therefore would he put his bonnet on,

Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;

The wind would blow it off, and, being gone,Craig1916: 1089

Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep;

And straight, in pity of his tender years,

They both would strive who first should dry his tears.Craig1916: 1092

‘To see his face the lion walk’d along

Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;

To recreate himself when he hath sung,

The tiger would be tame and gently hear him;

If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,Craig1916: 1097

And never fright the silly lamb that day.

‘When he beheld his shadow in the brook,

The fishes spread on it their golden gills;Craig1916: 1100

When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,

That some would sing, some other in their bills

Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries;

He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.Craig1916: 1104

‘But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,

Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,

Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;

Witness the entertainment that he gave:Craig1916: 1108

If he did see his face, why then I know

He thought to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so.

‘’Tis true, ’tis true; thus was Adonis slain:

He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,Craig1916: 1112

Who did not whet his teeth at him again,

But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;

And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine

Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.

‘Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess,

With kissing him I should have kill’d him first;

But he is dead, and never did he bless

My youth with his; the more am I accurst.’Craig1916: 1120

With this she falleth in the place she stood,

And stains her face with his congealed blood.

She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;

She takes him by the hand, and that is cold;

She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,Craig1916: 1125

As if they heard the woeful words she told;

She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,

Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies;Craig1916: 1128

Two glasses where herself herself beheld

A thousand times, and now no more reflect;

Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d,

And every beauty robb’d of his effect:Craig1916: 1132

‘Wonder of time,’ quoth she, ‘this is my spite,

That, you being dead, the day should yet be light.

‘Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy,

Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:Craig1916: 1136

It shall be waited on with jealousy,

Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;

Ne’er settled equally, but high or low;

That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.Craig1916: 1140

‘It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,

Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while;

The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d

With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:

The strongest body shall it make most weak,

Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.Craig1916: 1146

‘It shall be sparing and too full of riot,

Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;

The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,Craig1916: 1149

Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;

It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,

Make the young old, the old become a child.

‘It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;Craig1916: 1153

It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;

It shall be merciful, and too severe,

And most deceiving when it seems most just;

Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,Craig1916: 1157

Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

Edition: current; Page: [1258]

‘It shall be cause of war and dire events,

And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire;Craig1916: 1160

Subject and servile to all discontents,

As dry combustious matter is to fire:

Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy,

They that love best their love shall not enjoy.’

By this, the boy that by her side lay kill’dCraig1916: 1165

Was melted like a vapour from her sight,

And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,

A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white;Craig1916: 1168

Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood

Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,

Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath;Craig1916: 1172

And says within her bosom it shall dwell,

Since he himself is reft from her by death:

She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears

Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears.Craig1916: 1176

‘Poor flower,’ quoth she, ‘this was thy father’s guise,

Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire

For every little grief to wet his eyes:

To grow unto himself was his desire,Craig1916: 1180

And so ’tis thine; but know, it is as good

To wither in my breast as in his blood.

‘Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast;

Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right:

Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy rest,Craig1916: 1185

My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:

There shall not be one minute in an hour

Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flower.’Craig1916: 1188

Thus weary of the world, away she hies,

And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid

Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies

In her light chariot quickly is convey’d;Craig1916: 1192

Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen

Means to immure herself and not be seen.

Edition: current; Page: [1259]

THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare, William

Henry Wriothesly

Wriothesly, Henry

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with happiness.

Your lordship’s in all duty,

William Shakespeare.

THE ARGUMENT.

Lucius Tarquinius,—for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus,—after he had caused his own father-in-law, Servius Tullius, to be cruelly murdered, and contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people’s suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king’s son, in their discourses after supper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife: among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife—though it were late in the night—spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius, being inflamed with Lucrece’ beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father, and another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and the whole manner of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the Tarquins; and, bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter invective against the tyranny of the king: wherewith the people were so moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to consuls.

Edition: current; Page: [1260]

From the besieged Ardea all in post,

Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,

Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,

And to Collatium bears the lightless fireCraig1916: 4

Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire,

And girdle with embracing flames the waist

Of Collatine’s fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chaste unhappily setCraig1916: 8

This bateless edge on his keen appetite;

When Collatine unwisely did not let

To praise the clear unmatched red and white

Which triumph’d in that sky of his delight,Craig1916: 12

Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven’s beauties,

With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin’s tent,

Unlock’d the treasure of his happy state;Craig1916: 16

What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent

In the possession of his beauteous mate;

Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,

That kings might be espoused to more fame,

But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.Craig1916: 21

O happiness enjoy’d but of a few!

And, if possess’d, as soon decay’d and done

As is the morning’s silver-melting dewCraig1916: 24

Against the golden splendour of the sun;

An expir’d date, cancell’d ere well begun:

Honour and beauty, in the owner’s arms,

Are weakly fortress’d from a world of harms.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuadeCraig1916: 29

The eyes of men without an orator;

What needeth then apology be made

To set forth that which is so singular?Craig1916: 32

Or why is Collatine the publisher

Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown

From thievish ears, because it is his own?

Perchance his boast of Lucrece’ sovereigntyCraig1916: 36

Suggested this proud issue of a king;

For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:

Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,

Braving compare, disdainfully did stingCraig1916: 40

His high-pitch’d thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt

That golden hap which their superiors want.

But some untimely thought did instigate

His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those:Craig1916: 44

His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,

Neglected all, with swift intent he goes

To quench the coal which in his liver glows.

O! rash false heat, wrapp’d in repentant cold,

Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne’er grows old.Craig1916: 49

When at Collatium this false lord arriv’d,

Well was he welcom’d by the Roman dame,

Within whose face beauty and virtue striv’dCraig1916: 52

Which of them both should underprop her fame:

When virtue bragg’d, beauty would blush for shame;

When beauty boasted blushes, in despite

Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white.Craig1916: 56

But beauty, in that white intituled,

From Venus’ doves doth challenge that fair field;

Then virtue claims from beauty beauty’s red,

Which virtue gave the golden age to gildCraig1916: 60

Their silver cheeks, and call’d it then their shield;

Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,

When shame assail’d, the red should fence the white.

This heraldry in Lucrece’ face was seen,Craig1916: 64

Argu’d by beauty’s red and virtue’s white:

Of either’s colour was the other queen,

Proving from world’s minority their right:

Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;Craig1916: 68

The sovereignty of either being so great,

That oft they interchange each other’s seat.

This silent war of lilies and of roses,

Which Tarquin view’d in her fair face’s field,Craig1916: 72

In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;

Where, lest between them both it should be kill’d,

The coward captive vanquished doth yield

To those two armies that would let him go,Craig1916: 76

Rather than triumph in so false a foe.

Now thinks he that her husband’s shallow tongue—

The niggard prodigal that prais’d her so—

In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,

Which far exceeds his barren skill to show:Craig1916: 81

Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe

Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise,

In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.Craig1916: 84

This earthly saint, adored by this devil,

Little suspecteth the false worshipper;

For unstain’d thoughts do seldom dream on evil,

Birds never lim’d no secret bushes fear:Craig1916: 88

So guiltless she securely gives good cheer

And reverend welcome to her princely guest,

Whose inward ill no outward harm express’d:

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For that he colour’d with his high estate,Craig1916: 92

Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty;

That nothing in him seem’d inordinate,

Save sometime too much wonder of his eye,

Which, having all, all could not satisfy;Craig1916: 96

But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,

That, cloy’d with much, he pineth still for more.

But she, that never cop’d with stranger eyes,

Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,Craig1916: 100

Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies

Writ in the glassy margents of such books:

She touch’d no unknown baits, nor fear’d no hooks;

Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,Craig1916: 104

More than his eyes were open’d to the light.

He stories to her ears her husband’s fame,

Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;

And decks with praises Collatine’s high name,

Made glorious by his manly chivalryCraig1916: 109

With bruised arms and wreaths of victory:

Her joy with heav’d-up hand she doth express,

And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.Craig1916: 112

Far from the purpose of his coming thither,

He makes excuses for his being there:

No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather

Doth yet in this fair welkin once appear;Craig1916: 116

Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,

Upon the world dim darkness doth display,

And in her vaulty prison stows the Day.

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,Craig1916: 120

Intending weariness with heavy spright;

For after supper long he questioned

With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night:

Now leaden slumber with life’s strength doth fight,Craig1916: 124

And every one to rest themselves betake,

Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.

As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving

The sundry dangers of his will’s obtaining;Craig1916: 128

Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,

Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining:

Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;

And when great treasure is the meed propos’d,Craig1916: 132

Though death be adjunct, there’s no death suppos’d.

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,

For what they have not, that which they possess

They scatter and unloose it from their bond,Craig1916: 136

And so, by hoping more, they have but less;

Or, gaining more, the profit of excess

Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,

That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.Craig1916: 140

The aim of all is but to nurse the life

With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;

And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,

That one for all, or all for one we gage;Craig1916: 144

As life for honour in fell battles’ rage;

Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost

The death of all, and all together lost.

So that in venturing ill we leave to beCraig1916: 148

The things we are for that which we expect;

And this ambitious foul infirmity,

In having much, torments us with defect

Of that we have: so then we do neglectCraig1916: 152

The thing we have: and, all for want of wit,

Make something nothing by augmenting it.

Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,

Pawning his honour to obtain his lust,Craig1916: 156

And for himself himself he must forsake:

Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust?

When shall he think to find a stranger just,

When he himself himself confounds, betrays

To slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days?Craig1916: 161

Now stole upon the time the dead of night,

When heavy sleep had clos’d up mortal eyes;

No comfortable star did lend his light,Craig1916: 164

No noise but owls’ and wolves’ death-boding cries;

Now serves the season that they may surprise

The silly lambs; pure thoughts are dead and still,

While lust and murder wake to stain and kill.

And now this lustful lord leap’d from his bed,

Throwing his mantle rudely o’er his arm;

Is madly toss’d between desire and dread;

Th’ one sweetly flatters, th’ other feareth harm;

But honest fear, bewitch’d with lust’s foul charm,Craig1916: 173

Doth too too oft betake him to retire,

Beaten away by brain-sick rude desire.

His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,Craig1916: 176

That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly;

Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,

Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye;

Edition: current; Page: [1262]

And to the flame thus speaks advisedly:Craig1916: 180

‘As from this cold flint I enforc’d this fire,

So Lucrece must I force to my desire.’

Here pale with fear he doth premeditate

The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,Craig1916: 184

And in his inward mind he doth debate

What following sorrow may on this arise:

Then looking scornfully, he doth despiseCraig1916: 187

His naked armour of still-slaughter’d lust,

And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:

‘Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not

To darken her whose light excelleth thine;Craig1916: 191

And die, unhallow’d thoughts, before you blot

With your uncleanness that which is divine;

Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:

Let fair humanity abhor the deed

That spots and stains love’s modest snow-white weed.Craig1916: 196

‘O shame to knighthood and to shining arms!

O foul dishonour to my household’s grave!

O impious act, including all foul harms!

A martial man to be soft fancy’s slave!Craig1916: 200

True valour still a true respect should have;

Then my digression is so vile, so base,

That it will live engraven in my face.

‘Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive,Craig1916: 204

And be an eye-sore in my golden coat;

Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,

To cipher me how fondly I did dote;

That my posterity sham’d with the note,Craig1916: 208

Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin

To wish that I their father had not been.

‘What win I if I gain the thing I seek?

A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.Craig1916: 212

Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?

Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?

Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,

Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?Craig1916: 217

‘If Collatinus dream of my intent,

Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage

Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent?Craig1916: 220

This siege that hath engirt his marriage,

This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage,

This dying virtue, this surviving shame,

Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame?

‘O! what excuse can my invention make,Craig1916: 225

When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?

Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake,

Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed?Craig1916: 228

The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed;

And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,

But coward-like with trembling terror die.

‘Had Collatinus kill’d my son or sire,Craig1916: 232

Or lain in ambush to betray my life,

Or were he not my dear friend, this desire

Might have excuse to work upon his wife,

As in revenge or quittal of such strife:Craig1916: 236

But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,

The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end.

‘Shameful it is; ay, if the fact be known:

Hateful it is; there is no hate in loving:Craig1916: 240

I’ll beg her love; but she is not her own:

The worst is but denial and reproving:

My will is strong, past reason’s weak removing.

Who fears a sentence, or an old man’s saw,

Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.’Craig1916: 245

Thus, graceless, holds he disputation

’Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will,

And with good thoughts makes dispensation,

Urging the worser sense for vantage still;Craig1916: 249

Which in a moment doth confound and kill

All pure effects, and doth so far proceed,

That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed.

Quoth he, ‘She took me kindly by the hand,Craig1916: 253

And gaz’d for tidings in my eager eyes,

Fearing some hard news from the war-like band

Where her beloved Collatinus lies.Craig1916: 256

O! how her fear did make her colour rise:

First red as roses that on lawn we lay,

Then white as lawn, the roses took away.

‘And how her hand, in my hand being lock’d,

Forc’d it to tremble with her loyal fear!Craig1916: 261

Which struck her sad, and then it faster rock’d,

Until her husband’s welfare she did hear;

Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer,Craig1916: 264

That had Narcissus seen her as she stood,

Self-love had never drown’d him in the flood.

‘Why hunt I then for colour or excuses?

All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth;Craig1916: 268

Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses;

Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth:

Affection is my captain, and he leadeth;

And when his gaudy banner is display’d,Craig1916: 272

The coward fights and will not be dismay’d.

‘Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating, die!

Respect and reason, wait on wrinkled age!

My heart shall never countermand mine eye:

Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage;Craig1916: 277

My part is youth, and beats these from the stage.

Desire my pilot is, beauty my prise;

Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?’Craig1916: 280

Edition: current; Page: [1263]

As corn o’ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear

Is almost chok’d by unresisted lust.

Away he steals with open listening ear,

Full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust;Craig1916: 284

Both which, as servitors to the unjust,

So cross him with their opposite persuasion,

That now he vows a league, and now invasion.

Within his thought her heavenly image sits,Craig1916: 288

And in the self-same seat sits Collatine:

That eye which looks on her confounds his wits;

That eye which him beholds, as more divine,

Unto a view so false will not incline;Craig1916: 292

But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,

Which once corrupted, takes the worser part;

And therein heartens up his servile powers,

Who, flatter’d by their leader’s jocund show,

Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours;Craig1916: 297

And as their captain, so their pride doth grow,

Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.

By reprobate desire thus madly led,Craig1916: 300

The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece’ bed.

The locks between her chamber and his will,

Each one by him enforc’d, retires his ward;

But as they open they all rate his ill,Craig1916: 304

Which drives the creeping thief to some regard:

The threshold grates the door to have him heard;

Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;

They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.

As each unwilling portal yields him way,Craig1916: 309

Through little vents and crannies of the place

The wind wars with his torch to make him stay,

And blows the smoke of it into his face,Craig1916: 312

Extinguishing his conduct in this case;

But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,

Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch:

And being lighted, by the light he spiesCraig1916: 316

Lucretia’s glove, wherein her needle sticks:

He takes it from the rushes where it lies,

And griping it, the neeld his finger pricks;

As who should say, ‘This glove to wanton tricksCraig1916: 320

Is not inur’d; return again in haste;

Thou seest our mistress’ ornaments are chaste.’

But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;

He in the worst sense construes their denial:Craig1916: 324

The door, the wind, the glove, that did delay him,

He takes for accidental things of trial;

Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial,

Who with a ling’ring stay his course doth let,

Till every minute pays the hour his debt.Craig1916: 329

‘So, so,’ quoth he, ‘these lets attend the time,

Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring,

To add a more rejoicing to the prime,Craig1916: 332

And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing.

Pain pays the income of each precious thing;

Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands,

The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.’Craig1916: 336

Now is he come unto the chamber door,

That shuts him from the heaven of his thought,

Which with a yielding latch, and with no more,

Hath barr’d him from the blessed thing he sought.Craig1916: 340

So from himself impiety hath wrought,

That for his prey to pray he doth begin,

As if the heavens should countenance his sin.

But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,Craig1916: 344

Having solicited the eternal power

That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,

And they would stand auspicious to the hour,

Even there he starts: quoth he, ‘I must deflower;Craig1916: 348

The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact,

How can they then assist me in the act?

‘Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide!

My will is back’d with resolution:Craig1916: 352

Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried;

The blackest sin is clear’d with absolution;

Against love’s fire fear’s frost hath dissolution.

The eye of heaven is out, and misty nightCraig1916: 356

Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.’

This said, his guilty hand pluck’d up the latch,

And with his knee the door he opens wide.

The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch:Craig1916: 360

Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.

Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;

But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,

Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.Craig1916: 364

Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,

And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.

The curtains being close, about he walks,

Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:Craig1916: 368

By their high treason is his heart misled;

Which gives the watch word to his hand full soon,

To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.

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Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,Craig1916: 372

Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;

Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun

To wink, being blinded with a greater light:

Whether it is that she reflects so bright,Craig1916: 376

That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed,

But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.

O! had they in that darksome prison died,

Then had they seen the period of their ill;Craig1916: 380

Then Collatine again, by Lucrece’ side,

In his clear bed might have reposed still:

But they must ope, this blessed league to kill,

And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sightCraig1916: 384

Must sell her joy, her life, her world’s delight.

Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,

Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;

Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,

Swelling on either side to want his bliss;Craig1916: 389

Between whose hills her head entombed is:

Where, like a virtuous monument she lies,

To be admir’d of lewd unhallow’d eyes.Craig1916: 392

Without the bed her other fair hand was,

On the green coverlet; whose perfect white

Show’d like an April daisy on the grass,

With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.Craig1916: 396

Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light,

And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,

Till they might open to adorn the day.

Her hair, like golden threads, play’d with her breath;Craig1916: 400

O modest wantons! wanton modesty!

Showing life’s triumph in the map of death,

And death’s dim look in life’s mortality:

Each in her sleep themselves so beautify,Craig1916: 404

As if between them twain there were no strife,

But that life liv’d in death, and death in life.

Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue,

A pair of maiden worlds unconquered,Craig1916: 408

Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,

And him by oath they truly honoured.

These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred;

Who, like a foul usurper, went aboutCraig1916: 412

From this fair throne to heave the owner out.

What could he see but mightily he noted?

What did he note but strongly he desir’d?

What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,Craig1916: 416

And in his will his wilful eye he tir’d.

With more than admiration he admir’d

Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,

Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.

As the grim lion fawneth o’er his prey,Craig1916: 421

Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,

So o’er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,

His rage of lust by gazing qualified;Craig1916: 424

Slack’d, not suppress’d; for standing by her side,

His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,

Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins:

And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,Craig1916: 428

Obdurate vassals fell exploits effecting,

In bloody death and ravishment delighting,

Nor children’s tears nor mothers’ groans respecting,

Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting:Craig1916: 432

Anon his beating heart, alarum striking,

Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking.

His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,

His eye commends the leading to his hand;Craig1916: 436

His hand, as proud of such a dignity,

Smoking with pride, march’d on to make his stand

On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;

Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,Craig1916: 440

Left their round turrets destitute and pale.

They, mustering to the quiet cabinet

Where their dear goveness and lady lies,

Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,Craig1916: 444

And fright her with confusion of their cries:

She, much amaz’d, breaks ope her lock’d-up eyes,

Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,

Are by his flaming torch dimm’d and controll’d.Craig1916: 448

Imagine her as one in dead of night

From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,

That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,

Whose grim aspect sets every joint a-shaking;

What terror ’tis! but she, in worser taking,Craig1916: 453

From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view

The sight which makes supposed terror true.

Wrapp’d and confounded in a thousand fears,

Like to a new-kill’d bird she trambling lies;Craig1916: 457

She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears

Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:

Such shadows are the weak brain’s forgeries;

Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,

In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.

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His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,

Rude ram to batter such an ivory wall!Craig1916: 464

May feel her heart,—poor citizen,—distress’d

Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,

Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.

This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,Craig1916: 468

To make the breach and enter this sweet city.

First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin

To sound a parley to his heartless foe;

Who o’er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,Craig1916: 472

The reason of this rash alarm to know,

Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show;

But she with vehement prayers urgeth still

Under what colour he commits this ill.Craig1916: 476

Thus he replies: ‘The colour in thy face,—

That even for anger makes the lily pale,

And the red rose blush at her own disgrace,—

Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale;Craig1916: 480

Under that colour am I come to scale

Thy never-conquer’d fort: the fault is thine,

For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.

‘Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:Craig1916: 484

Thy beauty hath ensnar’d thee to this night,

Where thou with patience must my will abide,

My will that marks thee for my earth’s delight,

Which I to conquer sought with all my might;Craig1916: 488

But as reproof and reason beat it dead,

By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

‘I see what crosses my attempt will bring;

I know what thorns the growing rose defends;

I think the honey guarded with a sting;Craig1916: 493

All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends:

But will is deaf and hears no heedful friends;

Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,Craig1916: 496

And dotes on what he looks, ’gainst law or duty.

‘I have debated, even in my soul,

What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;

But nothing can affection’s course control,Craig1916: 500

Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.

I know repentant tears ensue the deed,

Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;

Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy.’Craig1916: 504

This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,

Which like a falcon towering in the skies,

Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade,

Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:Craig1916: 508

So under his insulting falchion lies

Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells

With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon’s bells.

‘Lucrece,’ quoth he, ‘this night I must enjoy thee:Craig1916: 512

If thou deny, then force must work my way,

For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee:

That done, some worthless slave of thine I’ll slay,

To kill thine honour with thy life’s decay;Craig1916: 516

And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,

Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.

‘So thy surviving husband shall remain

The scornful mark of every open eye;Craig1916: 520

Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,

Thy issue blurr’d with nameless bastardy:

And thou, the author of their obloquy,

Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rimes,Craig1916: 524

And sung by children in succeeding times.

‘But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:

The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;

A little harm done to a great good end,Craig1916: 528

For lawful policy remains enacted.

The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted

In a pure compound; being so applied,

His venom in effect is purified.Craig1916: 532

‘Then for thy husband and thy children’s sake,

Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot

The shame that from them no device can take,

The blemish that will never be forgot;Craig1916: 536

Worse than a slavish wipe or birth-hour’s blot:

For marks descried in men’s nativity

Are nature’s faults, not their own infamy.’

Here with a cockatrice’ dead-killing eyeCraig1916: 540

He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause;

While she, the picture of pure piety,

Like a white hind under the gripe’s sharp claws,

Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws,Craig1916: 544

To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

But when a black-fac’d cloud the world doth threat,

In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,

From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get,Craig1916: 549

Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,

Hindering their present fall by this dividing;

So his unhallow’d haste her words delays,Craig1916: 552

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.

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Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,

While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth:

Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly,Craig1916: 556

A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:

His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth

No penetrable entrance to her plaining:

Tears harden lust though marble wear with raining.Craig1916: 560

Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix’d

In the remorseless wrinkles of his face;

Her modest eloquence with sighs is mix’d,

Which to her oratory adds more grace.Craig1916: 564

She puts the period often from his place;

And midst the sentence so her accent breaks,

That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.

She conjures him by high almighty Jove,Craig1916: 568

By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship’s oath,

By her untimely tears, her husband’s love,

By holy human law, and common troth,

By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,

That to his borrow’d bed he make retire,Craig1916: 573

And stoop to honour, not to foul desire.

Quoth she, ‘Reward not hospitality

With such black payment as thou hast pretended;Craig1916: 576

Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;

Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;

End thy ill aim before thy shoot be ended;

He is no woodman that doth bend his bow

To strike a poor unseasonable doe.Craig1916: 581

‘My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare me;

Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave me;

Myself a weakling, do not, then, ensnare me;Craig1916: 584

Thou look’dst not like deceit, do not deceive me.

My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee;

If ever man were mov’d with woman’s moans,

Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans.Craig1916: 588

‘All which together, like a troubled ocean,

Beat at thy rocky and wrack-threatening heart,

To soften it with their continual motion;

For stones dissolv’d to water do convert.Craig1916: 592

O! if no harder than a stone thou art,

melt at my tears, and be compassionate;

Soft pity enters at an iron gate.

‘In Tarquin’s likeness I did entertain thee;Craig1916: 596

Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame?

To all the host of heaven I complain me,

Thou wrong’st his honour, wound’st his princely name.

Thou art not what thou seem’st; and if the same,Craig1916: 600

Thou seem’st not what thou art, a god, a king;

For kings like gods should govern every thing.

‘How will thy shame be seeded in thine age,

When thus thy vices bud before thy spring!Craig1916: 604

If in thy hope thou dar’st do such outrage,

What dar’st thou not when once thou art a king?

O! be remembered no outrageous thing

From vassal actors can be wip’d away;Craig1916: 608

Then kings’ misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.

‘This deed will make thee only lov’d for fear;

But happy monarchs still are fear’d for love:

With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,

When they in thee the like offences prove:Craig1916: 613

If but for fear of this, thy will remove;

For princes are the glass, the school, the book,

Where subjects’ eyes do learn, do read, do look.Craig1916: 616

‘And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?

Must he in thee read lectures of such shame?

Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern

Authority for sin, warrant for blame,Craig1916: 620

To privilege dishonour in thy name?

Thou back’st reproach against long-living laud,

And mak’st fair reputation but a bawd.

‘Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee,Craig1916: 624

From a pure heart command thy rebel will:

Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,

For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.

Thy princely office how canst thou fulfil,Craig1916: 628

When, pattern’d by thy fault, foul sin may say,

He learn’d to sin, and thou didst teach the way?

‘Think but how vile a spectacle it were,

To view thy present trespass in another.Craig1916: 632

Men’s faults do seldom to themselves appear;

Their own transgressions partially they smother:

This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.

O! how are they wrapp’d in with infamiesCraig1916: 636

That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes.

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‘To thee, to thee, my heav’d-up hands appeal,

Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier:

I sue for exil’d majesty’s repeal;Craig1916: 640

Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire:

His true respect will prison false desire,

And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne,

That thou shalt see thy state and pity mine.’

‘Have done,’ quoth he; ‘my uncontrolled tide

Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.

Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,

And with the wind in greater fury fret:Craig1916: 648

The petty streams that pay a daily debt

To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls’ haste

Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.’

‘Thou art,’ quoth she, ‘a sea, a sovereign king;Craig1916: 652

And lo! there falls into thy boundless flood

Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,

Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.

If all these petty ills shall change thy good,Craig1916: 656

Thy sea within a puddle’s womb is hears’d,

And not the puddle in thy sea dispers’d.

‘So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;

Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;Craig1916: 660

Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;

Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:

The lesser thing should not the greater hide;

The cedar stoops not to the base shrub’s foot,Craig1916: 664

But low shrubs wither at the eedar’s root.

‘So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state’—

‘No more,’ quoth he; ‘by heaven, I will not hear thee:

Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate,Craig1916: 668

Instead of love’s coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;

That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee

Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,

To be thy partner in this shameful doom.’Craig1916: 672

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,

For light and lust are deadly enemies:

Shame folded up in blind concealing night,

When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.

The wolf hath seiz’d his prey, the poor lamb cries;Craig1916: 677

Till with her own white fleece her voice controll’d

Entombs her outery in her lips’ sweet fold:

For with the nightly linen that she wearsCraig1916: 680

He pens her piteous clamours in her head,

Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears

That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.

O! that prone lust should stain so pure a bed,

The spots whereof could weeping purify,Craig1916: 685

Her tears should drop on them perpetually.

But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,

And he hath won what he would lose again;

This forced league doth force a further strife;

This momentary joy breeds months of pain;

This hot desire converts to cold disdain:

Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,Craig1916: 692

And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.

Look! as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,

Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,

Make slow pursuit, or altogether balkCraig1916: 696

The prey wherein by nature they delight;

So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:

His taste delicious, in digestion souring,

Devours his will, that liv’d by foul devouring.

O! deeper sin than bottomless conceitCraig1916: 701

Can comprehend in still imagination;

Drunken Desire must vomit his receipt,

Ere he can see his own abomination.Craig1916: 704

While Lust is in his pride, no exclamation

Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire,

Till like a jade Self-will himself doth tire.

And then with lank and lean discolour’d cheek,

With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,Craig1916: 709

Feeble Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,

Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:

The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace,Craig1916: 712

For there it revels; and when that decays,

The guilty rebel for remission prays.

So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,

Who this accomplishment so hotly chas’d;Craig1916: 716

For now against himself he sounds this doom,

That through the length of times he stands disgrac’d;

Besides, his soul’s fair temple is defac’d;

To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,

To ask the spotted princess how she fares.Craig1916: 721

She says, her subjects with foul insurrection

Have batter’d down her consecrated wall,

And by their mortal fault brought in subjection

Her immortality, and made her thrallCraig1916: 725

To living death, and pain perpetual:

Which in her prescience she controlled still,

But her foresight could not forestall their will.Craig1916: 728

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Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,

A captive victor that hath lost in gain;

Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,

The scar that will despite of cure remain;Craig1916: 732

Leaving his spoil perplex’d in greater pain.

She bears the load of lust he left behind,

And he the burden of a guilty mind.

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence,Craig1916: 736

She like a wearied lamb lies panting there;

He scowls and hates himself for his offence,

She desperate with her nails her flesh doth tear;

He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear,Craig1916: 740

She stays, exclaiming on the direful night;

He runs, and chides his vanish’d, loath’d delight.

He thence departs a heavy convertite,

She there remains a hopeless castaway;Craig1916: 744

He in his speed looks for the morning light,

She prays she never may behold the day;

‘For day,’ quoth she, ‘night’s ’scapes doth open lay,

And my true eyes have never practis’d how

To cloak offences with a cunning brow.Craig1916: 749

‘They think not but that every eye can see

The same disgrace which they themselves behold;

And therefore would they still in darkness be,

To have their unseen sin remain untold;Craig1916: 753

For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,

And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,

Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.’

Here she exclaims against repose and rest,Craig1916: 757

And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.

She wakes her heart by beating on her breast,

And bids it leap from thence where it may find

Some purer chest to close so pure a mind.Craig1916: 761

Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite

Against the unseen secrecy of night:

‘O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!Craig1916: 764

Dim register and notary of shame!

Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!

Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!

Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!

Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator

With close-tongu’d treason and the ravisher!

‘O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night!

Since thou art guilty of my curseless crime,Craig1916: 772

Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,

Make war against proportion’d course of time;

Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb

His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,Craig1916: 776

Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

‘With rotten damps ravish the morning air;

Let their exhal’d unwholesome breaths make sick

The life of purity, the supreme fair,Craig1916: 780

Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick;

And let thy misty vapours march so thick,

That in their smoky ranks his smother’d light

May set at noon and make perpetual night.

‘Were Tarquin Night, as he is but Night’s child,Craig1916: 785

The silver-shining queen he would distain;

Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil’d,

Through Night’s black bosom should not peep again:Craig1916: 788

So should I have co-partners in my pain;

And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,

As palmers’ chat makes short their pilgrimage.

‘Where now I have no one to blush with me,

To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,Craig1916: 793

To mask their brows and hide their infamy;

But I alone alone must sit and pine,

Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,Craig1916: 796

Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,

Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

‘O Night! thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,

Let not the jealous Day behold that faceCraig1916: 800

Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak

Immodestly lies martyr’d with disgrace:

Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,

That all the faults which in thy reign are madeCraig1916: 804

May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade.

‘Make me not object to the tell-tale Day!

The light will show, character’d in my brow,

The story of sweet chastity’s decay,Craig1916: 808

The impious breach of holy wedlock vow:

Yea, the illiterate, that know not how

To ’cipher what is writ in learned books,

Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.Craig1916: 812

‘The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,

And fright her crying babe with Tarquin’s name;

The orator, to deck his oratory,

Will couple my reproach to Tarquin’s shame;

Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,Craig1916: 817

Will tie the hearers to attend each line,

How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.

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‘Let my good name, that senseless reputation,

For Collatine’s dear love be kept unspotted:Craig1916: 821

If that be made a theme for disputation,

The branches of another root are rotted,

And undeserv’d reproach to him allottedCraig1916: 824

That is as clear from this attaint of mine,

As I ere this was pure to Collatine.

‘O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!

O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!Craig1916: 828

Reproach is stamp’d in Collatinus’ face,

And Tarquin’s eye may read the mot afar,

How he in peace is wounded, not in war.

Alas! how many bear such shameful blows,

Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows.Craig1916: 833

‘If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,

From me by strong assault it is bereft.

My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,Craig1916: 836

Have no perfection of my summer left,

But robb’d and ransack’d by injurious theft:

In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,

And suck’d the honey which thy chaste bee kept.Craig1916: 840

‘Yet am I guilty of thy honour’s wrack;

Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;

Coming from thee, I could not put him back,

For it had been dishonour to disdain him:Craig1916: 844

Besides, of weariness he did complain him,

And talk’d of virtue: O! unlook’d-for evil,

When virtue is profan’d in such a devil.

‘Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?

Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows’ nests?

Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?

Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?

Or kings be breakers of their own behests?Craig1916: 852

But no perfection is so absolute,

That some impurity doth not pollute.

‘The aged man that coffers-up his gold

Is plagu’d with cramps and gouts and painful fits;Craig1916: 856

And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,

But like still pining Tantalus he sits,

And useless barns the harvest of his wits;

Having no other pleasure of his gainCraig1916: 860

But torment that it cannot cure his pain.

‘So then he hath it when he cannot use it,

And leaves it to be master’d by his young;

Who in their pride do presently abuse it:Craig1916: 864

Their father was too weak, and they too strong,

To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.

The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours

Even in the moment that we call them ours.

‘Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;Craig1916: 869

Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;

The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;

What virtue breeds iniquity devours:Craig1916: 872

We have no good that we can say is ours,

But ill-annexed Opportunity

Or kills his life, or else his quality.

‘O Opportunity! thy guilt is great,Craig1916: 876

’Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason;

Thou sett’st the wolf where he the lamb may get;

Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season;

’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason;Craig1916: 880

And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,

Sits Sin to seize the souls that wander by him.

‘Thou mak’st the vestal violate her oath;

Thou blow’st the fire when temperance is thaw’d;Craig1916: 884

Thou smother’st honesty, thou murder’st troth;

Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!

Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:

Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,

Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!Craig1916: 889

‘Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,

Thy private feasting to a public fast,

Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,Craig1916: 892

Thy sugar’d tongue to bitter wormwood taste:

Thy violent vanities can never last.

How comes it, then, vile Opportunity,

Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

‘When wilt thou be the humble suppliant’s friend,Craig1916: 897

And bring him where his suit may be obtain’d?

When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?

Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain’d?Craig1916: 900

Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain’d?

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;

But they ne’er meet with Opportunity.

‘The patient dies while the physician sleeps;Craig1916: 904

The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;

Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;

Advice is sporting while infection breeds:

Thou grant’st no time for charitable deeds:Craig1916: 908

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder’s rages,

Thy beinous hours wait on them as their pages.

Edition: current; Page: [1270]

‘When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,

A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:Craig1916: 912

They buy thy help; but Sin ne’er gives a fee,

He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid

As well to hear as grant what he hath said.

My Collatine would else have come to meCraig1916: 916

When Tarquin did, but he was stay’d by thee.

‘Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,

Guilty of perjury and subornation,

Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift,Craig1916: 920

Guilty of incest, that abomination;

An accessary by thine inclination

To all sins past, and all that are to come,

From the creation to the general doom.Craig1916: 924

‘Mis-shapen time, copesmate of ugly Night,

Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,

Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,

Base watch of woes, sin’s pack-horse, virtue’s snare;Craig1916: 928

Thou nursest all, and murderest all that are;

O! hear me, then, injurious, shifting Time,

Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

‘Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,Craig1916: 932

Betray’d the hours thou gav’st me to repose?

Cancell’d my fortunes, and enchained me

To endless date of never-ending woes?

Time’s office is to fine the hate of foes;Craig1916: 936

To eat up errors by opinion bred,

Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.

‘Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,

To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,

To stamp the seal of time in aged things,Craig1916: 941

To wake the morn and sentinel the night,

To wrong the wronger till he render right,

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,

And smear with dust their glittering golden towers;Craig1916: 945

‘To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,

To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books and alter their contents,Craig1916: 948

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings,

To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs,

To spoil antiquities of hammer’d steel,

And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel;Craig1916: 952

‘To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,

To make the child a man, the man a child,

To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,

To tame the unicorn and lion wild,Craig1916: 956

To mock the subtle, in themselves beguil’d,

To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,

And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

‘Why work’st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,

Unless thou couldst return to make amends?

One poor retiring minute in an age

Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,

Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends:Craig1916: 964

O! this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,

I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack.

‘Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,

With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight:Craig1916: 968

Devise extremes beyond extremity,

To make him curse this cursed crimeful night:

Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright,

And the dire thought of his committed evil

Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.

‘Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,

Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;

Let there bechance him pitiful mischancesCraig1916: 976

To make him moan, but pity not his moans;

Stone him with harden’d hearts, harder than stones;

And let mild women to him lose their mildness,

Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

‘Let him have time to tear his curled hair,Craig1916: 981

Let him have time against himself to rave,

Let him have time of Time’s help to despair,

Let him have time to live a loathed slave,Craig1916: 984

Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave,

And time to see one that by alms doth live

Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

‘Let him have time to see his friends his foes,

And merry fools to mock at him resort;Craig1916: 989

Let him have time to mark how slow time goes

In time of sorrow, and how swift and short

His time of folly and his time of sport;Craig1916: 992

And ever let his unrecalling crime

Have time to wail the abusing of his time.

‘O Time! thou tutor both to good and bad,

Teach me to curse him that thou taught’st this ill;Craig1916: 996

At his own shadow let the thief run mad,

Himself himself seek every hour to kill:

Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill;Craig1916: 999

For who so base would such an office have

As slanderous deathsman to so base a slave?

‘The baser is he, coming from a king,

To shame his hope with deeds degenerate:

The mightier man, the mightier is the thingCraig1916: 1004

That makes him honour’d, or begets him hate;

For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.

Edition: current; Page: [1271]

The moon being clouded presently is miss’d,

But little stars may hide them when they list.

‘The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,Craig1916: 1009

And unperceiv’d fly with the filth away;

But if the like the snow-white swan desire,

The stain upon his silver down will stay.Craig1916: 1012

Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day.

Gnats are unnoted wheresoe’er they fly,

But eagles gaz’d upon with every eye.

‘Out, idle words! servants to shallow fools,Craig1916: 1016

Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!

Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;

Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters;

To trembling clients be you mediators:Craig1916: 1020

For me, I force not argument a straw,

Since that my case is past the help of law.

‘In vain I rail at Opportunity,

At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night;

In vain I cavil with my infamy,Craig1916: 1025

In vain I spurn at my confirm’d despite;

This helpless smoke of words doth me no right.

The remedy indeed to do me good,Craig1916: 1028

Is to let forth my foul-defiled blood.

‘Poor hand, why quiver’st thou at this decree?

Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;

For if I die, my honour lives in thee,Craig1916: 1032

But if I live, thou liv’st in my defame;

Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,

And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe,

Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.’Craig1916: 1036

This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth,

To find some desperate instrument of death;

But this no slaughter-house no tool imparteth

To make more vent for passage of her breath;

Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth

As smoke from Ætna, that in air consumes,

Or that which from dischared cannon fumes.

‘In vain,’ quoth she, ‘I live, and seek in vain

Some happy mean to end a hapless life:Craig1916: 1045

I fear’d by Tarquin’s falchion to be slain,

Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:

But when I fear’d I was a loyal wife:Craig1916: 1048

So am I now: O no! that cannot be;

Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

‘O! that is gone for which I sought to live,

And therefore now I need not fear to die.Craig1916: 1052

To clear this spot by death, at least I give

A badge of fame to slander’s livery;

A dying life to living infamy.

Poor helpless help, the treasure stol’n away,

To burn the guiltless casket where it lay?Craig1916: 1057

‘Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know

The stained taste of violated troth;

I will not wrong thy true affection so,Craig1916: 1060

To flatter thee with an infringed oath;

This bastard graff shall never come to growth;

He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute

That thou art doting father of his fruit.Craig1916: 1064

‘Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,

Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;

But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought

Basely with gold, but stol’n from forth thy gate.Craig1916: 1068

For me, I am the mistress of my fate,

And with my trespass never will dispense,

Till life to death acquit my forc’d offence.

‘I will not poison thee with my attaint,Craig1916: 1072

Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin’d excuses;

My sable ground of sin I will not paint,

To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses;

My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,Craig1916: 1076

As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,

Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.’

By this, lamenting Philomel had endedCraig1916: 1079

The well-tun’d warble of her nightly sorrow,

And solemn night with slow sad gait descended

To ugly hell; when, lo! the blushing morrow

Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:

But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,

And therefore still in night would cloister’d be.Craig1916: 1085

Revealing day through every cranny spies,

And seems to point her out where she sits weeping;

To whom she sobbing speaks: ‘O eye of eyes!

Why pry’st thou through my window? leave thy peeping;Craig1916: 1089

Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:

Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,

For day hath nought to do what’s done by night.’Craig1916: 1092

Thus cavils she with everything she sees:

True grief is fond and testy as a child,

Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees:

Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;

Continuance tames the one; the other wild,Craig1916: 1097

Like an unpractis’d swimmer plunging still,

With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

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So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,Craig1916: 1100

Holds disputation with each thing she views,

And to herself all sorrow doth compare;

No object but her passion’s strength renews,

And as one shifts, another straight ensues:Craig1916: 1104

Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;

Sometime ’tis mad and too much talk affords.

The little birds that tune their morning’s joy

Make her moans mad with their sweet melody:

For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;

Sad souls are slain in merry company;

Grief best is pleas’d with grief’s society:

True sorrow then is feelingly suffic’dCraig1916: 1112

When with like semblance it is sympathiz’d.

’Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;

He ten times pines that pines beholding food;

To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;Craig1916: 1116

Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;

Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,

Who, being stopp’d, the bounding banks o’erflows;

Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.

‘You mocking birds,’ quoth she, ‘your tunes entombCraig1916: 1121

Within your hollow-swelling feather’d breasts,

And in my hearing be you mute and dumb:

My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;

A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:Craig1916: 1125

Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;

Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.

‘Come, Philomel, that sing’st of ravishment,

Make thy sad grove in my dishevell’d hair:Craig1916: 1129

As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,

So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,

And with deep groans the diapason bear;Craig1916: 1132

For burthen-wise I’ll hum on Tarquin still,

While thou on Tereus descant’st better skill.

‘And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part

To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,

To imitate thee well, against my heartCraig1916: 1137

Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye,

Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.

These means, as frets upon an instrument,

Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.Craig1916: 1141

‘And for, poor bird, thou sing’st not in the day,

As shaming any eye should thee behold,

Some dark deep desert, seated from the way,

That knows nor parching heat nor freezing cold,Craig1916: 1145

We will find out; and there we will unfold

To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds:

Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.’Craig1916: 1148

As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,

Wildly determining which way to fly,

Or one encompass’d with a winding maze,

That cannot tread the way out readily;Craig1916: 1152

So with herself is she in mutiny,

To live or die which of the twain were better,

When life is sham’d, and death reproach’s debtor.Craig1916: 1155

‘To kill myself,’ quoth she, ‘alack! what were it

But with my body my poor soul’s pollution?

They that lose half with greater patience bear it

Than they whose whole is swallow’d in confusion.

That mother tries a merciless conclusion,Craig1916: 1160

Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,

Will slay the other and be nurse to none.

‘My body or my soul, which was the dearer,

When the one pure, the other made divine?Craig1916: 1164

Whose love of either to myself was nearer,

When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?

Ay me! the bark peel’d from the lofty pine,

His leaves will wither and his sap decay;Craig1916: 1168

So must my soul, her bark being peel’d away.

‘Her house is sack’d, her quiet interrupted,

Her mansion batter’d by the enemy;

Her sacred temple spotted, spoil’d, corrupted,

Grossly engirt with daring infamy:Craig1916: 1173

Then let it not be call’d impiety,

If in this blemish’d fort I make some hole

Through which I may convey this troubled soul.Craig1916: 1176

‘Yet die I will not till my Collatine

Have heard the cause of my untimely death:

That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,

Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.Craig1916: 1180

My stained blood to Tarquin I’ll bequeath,

Which by him tainted, shall for him be spent,

And as his due writ in my testament.

Edition: current; Page: [1273]

‘Mine honour I’ll bequeath unto the knifeCraig1916: 1184

That wounds my body so dishonoured.

’Tis honour to deprive dishonour’d life;

The one will live, the other being dead:

So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred;Craig1916: 1188

For in my death I murder shameful scorn:

My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.

‘Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,

What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?Craig1916: 1192

My resolution, love, shall be thy boast,

By whose example thou reveng’d mayst be.

How Tarquin must be us’d, read it in me:

Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,

And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.

‘This brief abridgment of my will I make:

My soul and body to the skies and ground;

My resolution, husband, do thou take;Craig1916: 1200

Mine honour be the knife’s that makes my wound;

My shame be his that did my fame confound;

And all my fame that lives disbursed be

To those that live, and think no shame of me.

‘Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;Craig1916: 1205

How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!

My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;

My life’s foul deed, my life’s fair end shall free it.

Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say, “So be it:”Craig1916: 1209

Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee:

Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.’

This plot of death when sadly she had laid,Craig1916: 1212

And wip’d the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,

With untun’d tongue she hoarsely call’d her maid,

Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;

For fleet-wing’d duty with thought’s feathers flies.Craig1916: 1216

Poor Lucrece’ cheeks unto her maid seem so

As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.

Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,

With soft slow tongue, true mark of modesty,

And sorts a sad look to her lady’s sorrow,Craig1916: 1221

For why her face wore sorrow’s livery;

But durst not ask of her audaciously

Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,

Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash’d with woe.Craig1916: 1225

But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,

Each flower moisten’d like a melting eye;

Even so the maid with swelling drops ’gan wet

Her circled eyne, enforc’d by sympathyCraig1916: 1229

Of those fair suns set in her mistress’ sky,

Who in a salt-wav’d ocean quench their light,

Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.Craig1916: 1232

A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,

Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling;

One justly weeps, the other takes in hand

No cause but company of her drops spilling;

Their gentle sex to weep are often willing,Craig1916: 1237

Grieving themselves to guess at others’ smarts,

And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts:

For men have marble, women waxen minds,

And therefore are they form’d as marble will;

The weak oppress’d, the impression of strange kinds

Is form’d in them by force, by fraud, or skill:

Then call them not the authors of their ill,Craig1916: 1244

No more than wax shall be accounted evil

Wherein is stamp’d the semblance of a devil.

Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,

Lays open all the little worms that creep;Craig1916: 1248

In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain

Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep:

Through crystal walls each little mote will peep:

Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,Craig1916: 1252

Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.

No man inveigh against the wither’d flower,

But chide rough winter that tho flower hath kill’d:

Not that devour’d, but that which doth devour,

Is worthy blame. O! let it not be hildCraig1916: 1257

Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfill’d

With men’s abuses: those proud lords, to blame,

Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.Craig1916: 1260

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,

Assail’d by night with circumstances strong

Of present death, and shame that might ensue

By that her death, to do her husband wrong:

Such danger to resistance did belong,Craig1916: 1265

That dying fear through all her body spread;

And who cannot abuse a body dead?

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By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak

To the poor counterfeit of her complaining:

‘My girl,’ quoth she, ‘on what occasion break

Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are raining?

If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,

Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood:Craig1916: 1273

If tears could help, mine own would do me good.

‘But tell me, girl, when went’—and there she stay’d

Till after a deep groan—‘Tarquin from hence?’—Craig1916: 1276

‘Madam, ere I was up,’ replied the maid,

‘The more to blame my sluggard negligence:

Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense;

Myself was stirring ere the break of day,Craig1916: 1280

And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.

‘But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,

She would request to know your heaviness.’

‘O! peace,’ quoth Lucrece; ‘if it should be told,Craig1916: 1284

The repetition cannot make it less;

For more it is than I can well express:

And that deep torture may be call’d a hell,

When more is felt than one hath power to tell.Craig1916: 1288

‘Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen:

Yet save that labour, for I have them here.

What should I say? One of my husband’s men

Bid thou be ready by and by, to bearCraig1916: 1292

A letter to my lord, my love, my dear:

Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;

The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.’Craig1916: 1295

Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,

First hovering o’er the paper with her quill:

Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;

What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;

This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill:Craig1916: 1300

Much like a press of people at a door,

Throng her inventions, which shall go before.

At last she thus begins: ‘Thou worthy lord

Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,Craig1916: 1304

Health to thy person! next vouchsafe t’ afford,

If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see,

Some present speed to come and visit me.

So I commend me from our house in grief:

My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.’Craig1916: 1309

Here folds she up the tenour of her woe,

Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.

By this short schedule Collatine may knowCraig1916: 1312

Her grief, but not her grief’s true quality:

She dares not thereof make discovery,

Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,

Ere she with blood had stain’d her stain’d excuse.Craig1916: 1316

Besides, the life and feeling of her passion

She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her;

When sighs, and groans, and tears may grace the fashion

Of her disgrace, the better so to clear herCraig1916: 1320

From that suspicion which the world might bear her.

To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter

With words, till action might become them better.

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told;Craig1916: 1324

For then the eye interprets to the ear

The heavy motion that it doth behold,

When every part a part of woe doth bear:

’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear;Craig1916: 1328

Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,

And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

Her letter now is seal’d, and on it writ

‘At Ardea to my lord, with more than haste.’

The post attends, and she delivers it,Craig1916: 1333

Charging the sour-fac’d groom to hie as fast

As lagging fowls before the northern blast.

Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems:Craig1916: 1336

Extremity still urgeth such extremes.

The homely villein curtsies to her low;

And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye

Receives the scroll without or yea or no,Craig1916: 1340

And forth with bashful innocence doth hie:

But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie

Imagine every eye beholds their blame;

For Lucrece thought he blush’d to see her shame:Craig1916: 1344

When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect

Of spirit, life, and bold audacity.

Such harmless creatures have a true respect

To talk in deeds, while others saucilyCraig1916: 1348

Promise more speed, but do it leisurely:

Even so this pattern of the worn-out age

Pawn’d honest looks, but laid no words to gage.

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His kindled duty kindled their mistrust,Craig1916: 1352

That two red fires in both their faces blaz’d;

She thought he blush’d, as knowing Tarquin’s lust,

And, blushing with him, wistly on him gaz’d;

Her earnest eye did make him more amaz’d:

The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,Craig1916: 1357

The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.

But long she thinks till he return again,

And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.Craig1916: 1360

The weary time she cannot entertain,

For now ’tis stale to sigh, to weep, and groan:

So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,

That she her plaints a little while doth stay,

Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.Craig1916: 1365

At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece

Of skilful painting, made for Priam’s Troy;

Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,

For Helen’s rape the city to destroy,Craig1916: 1369

Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;

Which the conceited painter drew so proud,

As heaven, it seem’d, to kiss the turrets bow’d.

A thousand lamentable objects there,Craig1916: 1373

In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life;

Many a dry drop seem’d a weeping tear,

Shed for the slaughter’d husband by the wife:

The red blood reek’d, to show the painter’s strife;Craig1916: 1377

And dying eyes gleam’d forth their ashy lights,

Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.

There might you see the labouring pioner,Craig1916: 1380

Begrim’d with sweat, and smeared all with dust;

And from the towers of Troy there would appear

The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,

Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust:Craig1916: 1384

Such sweet observance in this work was had,

That one might see those far-off eyes look sad.

In great commanders grace and majesty

You might behold, triumphing in their faces;

In youth quick bearing and dexterity;Craig1916: 1389

And here and there the painter interlaces

Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces;

Which heartless peasants did so well resemble,Craig1916: 1392

That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble.

In Ajax and Ulysses, O! what art

Of physiognomy might one behold;

The face of either cipher’d either’s heart;Craig1916: 1396

Their face their manners most expressly told:

In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigour roll’d;

But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent

Show’d deep regard and smiling government.

There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,Craig1916: 1401

As ’twere encouraging the Greeks to fight;

Making such sober action with his hand,

That it beguil’d attention, charm’d the sight.

In speech, it seem’d, his beard, all silver white,

Wagg’d up and down, and from his lips did fly

Thin winding breath, which purl’d up to the sky.

About him were a press of gaping faces,Craig1916: 1408

Which seem’d to swallow up his sound advice;

All jointly listening, but with several graces,

As if some mermaid did their ears entice,

Some high, some low, the painter was so nice;Craig1916: 1412

The scalps of many, almost hid behind,

To jump up higher seem’d, to mock the mind.

Here one man’s hand lean’d on another’s head,

His nose being shadow’d by his neighbour’s ear;

Here one being throng’d bears back, all boll’n and red;Craig1916: 1417